How Much Detail Should You Give When Answering Questions?
I sat with a friend today who described frustration with a colleague who had lost a sale my friend had been pursuing for a long time. The client had asked the colleague, whom I will call Ernest, if he had ever done work in a foundry. Ernest had answered, “Yes, but only once and it was over twenty years ago for a company that was so different from yours that there isn’t much relevance to your situation.” After the meeting, Ernest had argued that a less detailed response would have been misleading, and so, dishonest.
First, I want to commend Ernest for his desire to be honest. There is, unfortunately, too much lying in selling situations and it gives selling a bad name. I do not think Ernest was being prudish nor that his colleague wanted him to do something unprincipled. Yet, I think his answer was a mistake.
In making his defense of his answer, he committed at least two logical fallacies. First, he assumed he could read the client’s mind. Ernest presumed that the question was about relevant client experience. What if it wasn’t? For example, it may have been a simple devise to get Ernest to talk to get a sense of what he would be like to work with. If so, and I think this at least as likely as the reason Ernest assumed, he showed the client that he was likely to bore him with unwanted detail and, worse, that he was none too savvy.
Or the client could have wanted to know how Ernest felt about spending a good part of the next few months in a place with a lot of banging and crashing. We will never know. If so, Ernest’s answer showed no tolerance or interest in such a place. Unless you know why a person is asking a question, you don’t really know how to answer.
Second, he assumed that an accurate but imprecise answer would be misleading and dishonest. The distinction between accuracy and precision should be kept in mind when answering client questions. An accurate statement, such as Ford Harding is between 20 and 70 years old, can be imprecise. And a precise one; Ford Harding is 18 years, four months and six days old; can be inaccurate. When we answer questions, we often make tradeoffs, explicitly or implicitly, between accuracy and precision. An answer that is sufficiently precise in one context may not be in another. If a policeman asks a young person’s age at a bar, he requires a precision not usually necessary, for example.
Answers to the question, Have you ever worked in a foundry?, such as Yes or Yes, but it was a while ago are both accurate, if imprecise in that they don’t give much detail. If they satisfy the client and are true, he may be put off by having more information pressed upon him. He can follow up with more questions, if he wants to.
If you are concerned that you may have misled him or that you may appear to have been evasive if he does ask for detail, the solution is simple: ask before you tell more. Yes. Is experience in a foundry important to you? His answer will guide you to the right level of precision. For example, he might answer, Only in that it would be better, if you knew what it is like to spend months in a place with so much noise, before you take the assignment. This might open the opportunity to describe work you did at a heavy metal stamping plant or the noise your child’s rock band makes when it rehearses in your living room, information relevant but not obvious.
But Ernest assumed he knew what the client was thinking and the level of detail the client wanted. Ernest is a nice man and generally good to be around. But trying to read another’s intentions, as he did in this case, can be an annoying thing to do. How would you feel, if you asked a travel agent if she had ever been to Sweden, and you got a lengthy, qualified answer which seemed to suggested she wasn’t certain about anything on the subject, when all you really wanted to know is if the currency there is the Euro?
April 6th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Ford, simply asking “How do you mean, exactly?”, with a sincere, questioning look on your face opens it up for an exact response.
Then, use strong listening skills to give them time to formulate the answer that will get you closer to what they are looking for.
You can always ask second and third level questions, when necessary, to get the detail to answer this very important, in or out, question.
Your question, in my opinion, is also assumptive.
Also, the prospective client may answer your question with a yes. What do you do, then? You’re right back where you started.
Q: Have you worked in a foundry? Maybe he wants someone who was actually an employee in a foundry.
Again, don’t assume anything.
April 6th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Chris,
I think your point a good one. We all have slightly different images of the client asking the question based on our experiences. Depending on the client’s tone of voice, posture and other communication not captured in my description, different responses are appropriate. “Is that important to you?” works for me, depending on that context. If the client says it is, I need to know this and would follow up with, “Tell me more, please.”
I can say “Is that important to you?” with great earnestness or lightness and communicate different things, as you can do with your suggested wording. I learned long ago that words that work well for one person don’t always work for another. But we can find words that will accomplish the same end.
In short, I generally agree with your argument not to assume anything. We agree on ends and principals; our means differ slightly.
Thanks for the comment.
Ford Harding
April 6th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Ford -
Great post, I have a pitch this week and will keep your vignette in mind.
I find myself sometimes answering too long/voluteering too much information. I believe its rooted in a desire to be helpful, and perhaps a bad habit from early retail sales.
Worst I ever stepped in it: an owner once asked me (after we’d worked together for a couple of years) what I thought of a centralized system in one of his facilities. I could have said “I don’t know, tell me more about it” but instead commented on the failure rates I’d heard of with other installations and that I thought they were problematic - of course, the system was his idea and pet, and he let me know it; it was embarrassing, and would have been catastrophic if we didn’t have a good relationship (and if he didn’t take such delight in making me squirm!).
Can one be an enthusiastic expert witness, answering short, not volunteering info, but slyly leading the questioneer?
April 7th, 2009 at 6:38 am
David
Thanks for your openness. We have all made mistakes like the one you mention. Sales skill requires going back to the basics again and again.
In answer to your question, I am not comfortable with “slyly,” because it implies a possible deception. The exchange between buyer and seller can help advance the buyer’s understanding of his own problem. That’s a high-value exchange. But if he really wants someone with foundry experience and feels he has a compelling reason for doing so, either I’ve got it or I don’t. If not, either I team with someone who does, or I stop wasting the buyer’s time and my own and go pursue something else that better matches my quals.
Just don’t assume that this is a go-no go issue before exploring it with the buyer.
Ford Harding
April 8th, 2009 at 5:13 am
Great post Ford. It’s a tiny bit hard for me to read it without wincing because the general category of “over assuming” and answering what I infer the intent of the questions is, instead of confirming it, is something that I fall victim to.
It also reinforces the related success habit I keep trying to improve on, which is to get the prospect to do as much of the talking as possible. Personally, I struggle with this.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Steve
Most of us do. Keep up the fight!
Ford Harding